OTP SMS Bombing : A new type of revenge cyber crime technique by people who just get sadist pleasure.
Victim‘s Mobile Phone will start getting hundred/thousands of SMS in his message box from different SMS gateways like Flipkart, Ola, Uber, Zomato, Goibibo, Redbus etc. It can be from any sms gateway via a website which has 'Forgot Password' option on it.
Earlier, culprits use to run a script which had Forgot Password URLs of 6-7 websites in it and they had to just enter a mobile number of the target victim in the software script, the mobile number gets punched on that website forgot password option for the maximum times the website allows (10 times in many cases). So now the victim gets 10 OTP messages from that gateway/company whoose 'Forgot Password' link was used and victims mobile number was punched by the culprit several times.
Now a days, Black Hat Developers had developed free bombing apps (namely : Bomb-It-Up) which do the same job automatically having a smart graphical user Interface . The culprit just had to enter the victim's mobile number, no. of messages he want to send and click on a single button 'send'.
These apps are not available directly on google play store or on IOS App Store but their apk files are easily downloadable from websites when you search for it on google.
Consequences :
Sometimes people gets thousand/lakh of SMS in their inbox and their memory start filling up, their mobile phone hangs at so much so to the extent that messaging app doesn't even open. This victim person is only left with the option of hard reset with the mobile phone.
Legal Remedy : Section 43(e) read with Section 66 of the IT Act,2000 along with Section 425 of IPC is applicable. This attracts maximum punishment upto 3 years of imprisonment or upto ₹5 Lakhs of fine or both. Remember this is a cognisable offence, so police can arrest the culprit without warrant.
Prevention :
The only prevention to this attack is that 'as soon as you came to know about this attack on your phone, start blocking all the SMS gateways' Generally there are 15-20 gateways at max, block all these gateways once in your messaging app. You'll get no more messages from that gateway.
Know how to Block the SMS
Precaution: Next day you need to UnBlock the SMS Gateways so you start getting Authentic OTP, PIN ans SMS.
Be Cyber Safe
Adv (Dr.) Prashant Mali
Cyber Security Expert
+919821763157
